World Aids Day

EVENT CALENDAR: Mandela's 2008 World AIDS Day concerts; Reginald Hudlin at Montclair Art Museum; Spike Lee in Columbus for Wexner Award.

December 4, 2007

Nelson Mandela's 46664 campaign has announced it will host two concerts in 2008. The first concert will take place in London's Hyde Park on June 27, while the second will be held on World AIDS Day - Dec. 1 - in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, reports Billboard. The former South African president made the announcement Saturday (Dec. 1) while appearing on-stage at the 46664 music event at Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium. Mandela appeared midway through Saturday night's show, which saw a mix of international and national artists perform in Johannesburg for the first time under the 46664 banner, which takes its name from Mandela's prison number during his time incarcerated on Robben Island. The event uses music to raise funds for key HIV/AID-related projects in sub-Saharan Africa.

*The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) in Montclair, NJ will present a conversation with Reginald Hudlin on Thursday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. as part of the Creating Art: Conversations with African American Artists series. Hudlin, president of Black Entertainment Television and a comic book writer for Marvel’s Black Panther and Spider-man series, will discuss the African American presence in comics – both behind the scenes as creators and in the pages themselves as characters. The lecture, free to the public, will be followed by a Q&A with the audience and a reception. The Montclair Art Museum is located at 3 South Mountain Ave.. Information and directions are available on the Museum Web site www.montclairartmuseum.org, or by calling (973) 746-5555.

*Spike Lee has been awarded the Wexner Center for the Arts prize by its International Arts Advisory Council. Lee will come to Columbus Feb. 11-12 to accept the $50,000 award, which honors a contemporary artist in any field whose work has been original, influential and challenging. The controversial filmmaker's more than 20-year career includes the Oscar-nominated "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X" and last year's Emmy-winning TV miniseries on Hurricane Katrina, "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts." The last Wexner Center for the Arts was given out in 2006 to choreographer Bill T. Jones.